GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – Palestinian
resistance movement Hamas says the latest Zionist airstrikes on the Gaza Strip are a desperate attempt by the occupying regime to cover up its failure in the case of the recent Palestinian jailbreak.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the regime’s military carried out the airstrikes on the southern parts of Gaza on Monday night right after six Palestinians broke out of the high-security Gilboa prison.
The raids were part of the regime’s attempts to hide its defeat in the face of the Palestinian anti-occupation struggles, he said.
The occupying regime claimed in a statement that it hit a Hamas rocket production facility and training camp in the city of Khan Yunis after alleged incendiary balloons from the Besieged Palestinian enclave sparked three fires in occupied areas.
Huge explosions were heard in the area, and Hamas fighters fired back at the attacking war jets, eyewitnesses said.
The occupying regime has launched multiple airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since the end of the last round of tension between the regime and resistance fighters that lasted 11 days and ended on May 21, leaving more than 250 Palestinians dead.
Six Palestinian prisoners managed to tunnel their way out through their cell’s drainage system and escaped from Gilboa prison in the predawn hours of Monday.
The six Palestinians include Zakaria Zubeidi, a former commander of the Palestinian resistance group Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, as well as five members of Islamic Jihad group.
Four of the Islamic Jihad members were serving life sentences, while the fifth had been held without charge for two years under a so-called administrative detention order, according to Israeli media.
Hamas called the escape “a heroic act and a victory for the will and determination of our heroic detainees.”
Islamic Jihad has also lauded the jailbreak as “a powerful blow to the occupation forces.”
Human rights organizations say the occupying regime violates the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention.